Mirror mirror on the Jag

The mirrors look in pretty good nick. However the drivers side mirror has clearly taken a beating. There is foam stuck where it rotates, the mirror glass has been replaced with one of those horrid 'stick over the top' types, the powerfold mechanism is broken and it does not adjust very well.

 

Window dressing

The windscreen and the rear side windows have these window toppers on them. I think some people call them sun-strips. I'm not particularly keen so these will be going.

 

The interior

Looking at the centre console, we find some strange rubber seal has been glued to the ashtray lid. I tried peeling this off and the glue is really a pain to remove. I might end up having to replace this part which is going to be difficult. Sometimes the littlest things can give you the most trouble....



The top of the armrest is worn, but I think its good enough to re-colour and save. Fingers crossed!



The cup-holders need a good scrub!





Some sort of residue on the underside of the lid... bet that's been there for quite a few years...



...the all important phone!... not sure if it works yet?



I love cars with picnic tables. The ones in the Daimler look fairly good all things considered. They move in and out smoothly which is more than I can say for my last Daimler.

Just a bit of clouding in the lacquer, unfortunately X308 models are prone to the lacquer clouding and there is evidence all over this car....









Both front door armrests are worn, not sure what I am going to be able to do about this; might need to come off a be re-finished/coloured.





The interior leather looks pretty ok from a glance:





But when you get close its dirty, much in need of a clean:



The drivers seat is very worn on the base:





A lovely bit of blood on the drivers seat bolster... just when I thought I had seen everything.



The front passenger seat is also a bit worn on the base.



Lots of ingrained dirt on the steering wheel. Should come out nice and easy, and it looks in pretty good nick actually.

 

The boot (or trunk as it is known elsewhere in the world)

The boot looks pretty good - all carpets are in nice condition, just need a hoover and clean.



Obviously there is a pushed out area to the passenger side, where the accident damage is. The CD changer has been pushed into the boot. At this stage I had no idea if it worked, but it turned out to be working fine.



Some minor damage to the latching mechanism, although its just cosmetic.



The boot toolkit is not complete, but I suppose at least we have one.



An eccentric previous owner has put the locking wheel-nut in this tiny blue bag...



This battery seems in good order. I have the receipt for it and it is very old, and therefore due for replacement in theory, but it seems strong for the time being.



This made me chuckle... home made poor mans version of umbrella hoops... There were two of these each end of the boot for the umbrella.



This connector sits unconnected by the battery; I wonder what it is for?

 

More interior

The rear armrest has a nice cupboard inside:





The rear seats have their own little command console! You can move the seat forwards/backwards, adjust the lumbar in/out and adjust the headrest. These seats are also heated! There are cupholders for the rear too.





This little area appears to have a slight bit of damage. I am going to have to remove and inspect.



The front centre console is tip-top. Just a bit dirty:





The gear selector also seems good, and the buttons work nicely. The X308 were prone for the bulbs going in these switches. I shall have to wait for night and try them to see what these are like.



More of this strange rubber to 'seal' off the rear ashtrays. This seems to serve no purpose and I removed it easily by peeling it off.



The rear manual blinds are in excellent working order - shame they are not electric like equivalent German rivals!!



Love this walnut overhead console. This would be plastic on the equivalent Jaguar models in the UK.



The premium sound system with Alpine subwoofer on parcel shelf:





Lambswool matts are missing, and the carpets look awful.





So that's pretty much it... an overview of the car and the problems. They are not too bad all things considered. Most of the problem is the lower bodywork.

So now I could push on with a deep clean!!

 

Bringing the wife on side

I purchased the car late September, in October I was enjoying looking at it... but not much else.

On evening I was coming home from work, and I got a message from Lindsey "at mums, pop in for a cuppa if you like".

So I headed home, dropped off the Jaguar X358, and picked up the Daimler for a nice little run. It was MOTd, taxed and insured... so rude not to use it! So later that evening I drive it home, and park up.

Just as I am getting out, Lindsey says "can I have a go then?".

I get out, and Lindsey gets in. She disappears down the road in the Daimler, and I get to hear that glorious V8 from outside the car. I go inside the house, with little baby Aston and wait.... and wait.... and wait..... and wait....

I really was starting to worry after a while as she'd been gone so long.... or at least it felt like it!! She came home with a giant grin on her face. "That is seriously fast!" she says. I think its best I do not know what she did with the poor Daimler on Friday evening, but it appears unscathed... I think Lindsey has bonded with the Daimler!

Re-colouring the front armrest

A lot of the leather in the Daimler was looking tired. So in November 2018 I decided to try out my repair skills on the front armrest; particularly as I could easily remove it and work on it in the house.

After cleaning, this is what I was starting with:







I used one of the Gliptone Scuffmaster kits, made for the magnolia shade of leather in the Daimler. I used the sponge to apply the colour, dabbing it repeatedly until it evened out, and using very light, thin coats. I did not paint the whole armrest, just the worn areas, but I blended it with the existing colour by tapering off.

After what was probably 6 or 6 coats I was left with this (you will have to forgive the difference in shade, I took these under the houselights; the previous were natural sunlight):







For a first attempt, this tidied it up nicely, which indicated it was worth trying to re-colour the seats and armrests.

 

Death of a Jaguar

The next bit is not pretty... I recommend anyone sensitive misses out of this next post!

I was driving through Thetford forest to work one morning in November, and all of the traffic came to a halt in front of me. I have to confess I was part day dreaming, worrying about some stuff we are doing at work as it happens. I was actually some way behind the car in front, but by the time I realised the cars were all stopping my brain did some calcs, and decided the best thing was for me to steer around the traffic, off the road into the grass verge.... big mistake.

It occured to me that if I had just kept straight and applied the brakes I would have probably been OK, after all as a queue of traffic we were probably only going 45mph. But sadly that's not what I did. I steered into the long wet grass of the verge and then all steering seemed to vanish, the brakes were doing nothing, and I skidded right though the growth and into a massive tree!

It turns out there was a military vehicle broken down at the side of the road, and the traffic was having the stop/start to get around the narrow road.





My car was recovered after I phoned my insurance company. To my surprise the car still ran and drove!





Boy did I feel like a complete prat...

The garage quoted £9,500 to repair the damage, which meant the car was written off. To my surprise I was not covered for a courtesy car if my car was not being repaired.

So the Daimler urgently went to the local garage for a full service, so that I could use it temporarily while I looked for another car.

I found this about the equipment belt chirp, and asked teh garage to sort it out... but they did not bother to do it. But at least I have this for the future.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...rp-cold-65777/

At this point I was considering converting the Daimler to LPG, and using it as a daily driver permanently.

 

The bodyshop repairs

In December 2018 the bodyshop had the car for a week to do some quick preparation work, as the panel beater was due to be on holiday for the first few months of 2019. The rest of the work was planned for after Christmas by the remaining guys at the bodyshop, in January.

So this:

#

Became this:





I then dropped the car back off to them on Monday 14th January 2019. They said it would take 3 weeks to complete.

Sadly this did not go to plan. The bodyshop in question did a lot of "urgent" work for the local car sales dealers, and because it was regular work it always went to the top of the Queue. A total of 6 weeks later they had at least made a start, but the car was some way off. All of the arches were stripped, and they reported they found loads of fibre glass - and even an Aluminium Pepsi can in one of the front sills!

They found more rust on the floor. I gave them the go-ahead to repair this too.



I also asked them to respray the complete front bumper for me, at an extra cost, as I noticed a nasty scuff, and there were already lots of stone chips.

Kept chasing, but at the end of March things had still not changed.

 

Watch out for those Chermans, they can be addictive

Going back in time a little, to December 2018, I had found myself without a car thanks to my decision to park the Jaguar X358 Sovereign in a tree at the end of November.

I thought it was time for a change, so I ruled out another Jaguar X350 or X358, but I did not really like the X351 styling, so combined with the high prices these were commanding that ruled them out too. But what made things worse, is my insurance company decided the Jag was only worth a couple of grand, so I ended up in an argument with them over the settlement.

I saw this Mercedes one day, and because it was in such amazing condition, and had a very high specification (Keyless Go, Distronic, and premium massaging Nappa leather are rare on these in the UK, particularly on Diesel models) I went for it.







But this car was on the driveway for less than 2 weeks.

The day after I took it home, I came out to find it had a flat battery. I bought a brand new battery, but the same happened again a few days later. The car clearly had a battery drain somewhere.

I did not want to mess around having this repaired, as I know sales dealerships can sometimes mess you around with this sort of thing. So I returned the car straight away.

So I was then without a car, and panicking a little. I continued to search the Autotrader adverts and finally settled on this BMW 7 series.



This also had an unusual high specification, and came with a powered bootlid, and heated/ventilated/massaging seats.





My son Aston seemed to take a liking to sitting in the BMW.



But I got bored with this incredibly quickly, and I felt is was just not very "me". I did not bond with it at all.

I had the BMW for around 2 months, then in March I decided I wanted something else.

I eventually opted for this 2009 Mercedes CL500, which I loved from the moment I bought it. I bonded with it right from the start, and my wife Lindsey said it just suited me.







It was not the most practical car on the face of it. But we found that the rear seats fitted a child seat very well, and the boot was enormous and perfect if we took it away or shopping.

But for some reason I kept the BMW on the drive too. So all of a sudden we had 4 cars!

 

Lambswool matts

It had bothered me that the Daimler was missing it's lambswool overmats, and I regularly scoured Ebay for a used set. At the end of March, with the Daimler still at the bodyshop, I managed to win a set for £60 (£72 including postage).



I cleaned them up and they were a little worn, but perfectly useable.



Progress update for the Daimler

Around the same time, on the 30th March 2019, I visited the bodyshop and found my Daimler like this.









It was at least nice to see it has been started, but I could see the repairs were already attracting surface rust, so it may well have been sitting a little while. I had lost all trust in he bodyshop, as every week they said it would ready in another week or two.. then when that came it was always another week or two, and another etc. It had started as a 2 week job, and at that point it had been 10 weeks.

I was losing patience fast.

I kept chasing, and being messed around, and made a few surprise visits when they did not answer their phone.

This was the state of the Daimler on the 5th April.









Then finally seeing some paint, this was the state of it on the 19th April. I was overjoyed to see some real progress, and what had been painted appeared to be a good standard.





















But as you can see, it was outside doing nothing. Not inside being finished, it took more surprise visits and broken promises to finally get it back home.

 

Return of the Daimler

On Tuesday the 23rd April, I finally got confirmation the Daimler was finished. I was told give them the day to clean it, and I could pick it up that evening. This becomes more amusing later on, as they clearly did not clean it. I suspect they were still finishing it off.

So I went to collect it, and at first glance it looked great in the sun. Then as I got closer I noticed drips of dried wet-sanding waste, and bits of trim looked badly fitted too. The rear bumper was not fitted straight, and one corner of the front bumper had a piece of newspaper stuck to it that looked embedded in the paint. I felt really disappointed.

The bodyshop owner had gone, probably did not want to have to face me, and had left a young lad to do the handover with me; I thought that was particularly naughty. But I just wanted the car out of there, so I paid up and took it away as quickly as I could.

This is the car later at home.













Not too bad from a distance, but the following is the detail that makes it bad...

The interior was absolutely filthy. Lets remember that I cleaned it thoroughly before it went to the bodyshop!



Both front sills now missing their treadplate covers.



The covers are coiled up in the rear footwells.





General dust and muck all over the interior is obscene!



















The front center armrest i restored needed doing again, as they had scuffed it up.



Parking sensors not mounted correctly.



Rear bumper not lined up properly, and there were imperfections in the paint.









Filth in the door shuts all round.



Overspray.





More muck, and they had wet-sanded through the clearcoat and paint on the edges of the door handles.









Masking tape not removed in quite a few places.





Front bumper clearly did not have the re-spray it was supposed to have.











Two places where there is rust they were supposed to repair and did not.





This is how they attached the drivers side chrome sill trim!



Who does pinstripes like this!?







Poorly executed paintwork.



Wet-sanded through the paint again here.



So as you can imagine I was not at all happy, but at least I had my Daimler back.

 

"To do"

At this point (25th April 2019) I made a list of everything I wanted to do to the Daimler.

- Replace missing rear passenger side reflector (LNC5022AB)
- Thoroughly clean the car, inside and out.
- Assess any remedial work to the paintwork (including pinstripes/overspray); then add plan to address using wet-sanding/compounding etc.
- Re-colour the armrest, and front seats where necessary.
- Fit missing wheel nut, then assess if any new tyres needed, spare is definitely needed!
- Re-spray of front bumper.
- Re-spray of rear bumper and adjust rear side profile to line up properly with wing.
- Assess if front sill covers can be re-fitted; fit if possible.
- Re-fit the jacking point cover.
- Purchase LNF7361AA rear parking sensor bracket, paint it, and then re-fit parking sensor.
- Adjust position of wonky parking sensors, re-paint those which need it.
- Check height of exhausts, or is bumper wonky between exhausts? Investigate.
- Re-fit the chrome trim at drivers side front sill.
- Have rust attended to (by new bodyshop) on corners of passenger side doors.
- Have rust attended to (by new bodyshop) on front side, of drivers side front arch (where it meets bumper).
- Wire in some USB charging points and fit under armrest.
- New front Grille (there is minor marking around the "D" badge).
- New radiator "D" badge (mine has been badly painted gold!).
- New rear drivers side light, mine has crack in plastic lens.
- New "Daimler" or "V8" badges for side window chrome pillars (mine have once again been badly painted gold).
- Install "Audio aux input" (maybe this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/aux-jagr.html, or this: http://factoryradioservice.com/jagua...nput-p-37.html)
- Investigate Bluetooth phone install (This might help: http://jimroal.com/cars/X308Bluetooth.pdf)
- Re lacquer all wood trim (as it is faded and cracked in places)
- New gear knob (mine is faded)
- Thoroughly clean engine bay.
- Have gearbox oil changed.
- Purchase and fit missing under-bonnet tool kit.
- Repair/ Replace faulty seat back adjuster motor.

 

The Daimler's wheels

On the 28th April 2018 I was eager to get on cleaning and sorting out the Daimler. But sadly there were 60kph winds, and I did not date leave the doors open.

So I started on the wheels and ended up with this.



The following day I removed the other three wheels and did the same thing, one at a time.









Then I gave the whole interior a scrub, and a thorough clean! (sadly I did not take many photos...)





Then I gave the car a snow-foam, and a wash to clean off all the obvious dirt and grime.

I removed that poorly fitted trim behind the front drivers side wheel arch (the sill).



They had not bothered to clean it up before they stuck it on.



This random collection parts were in the boot.



Some exterior pictures before I finished for the day.











Sadly there was still plenty more to do...

I also found that the front treadplates are pretty reasonably priced, so ordered some new ones.

 

Minor improvements can make all the difference

On the 4th may I made a few more minor improvements.

Ordered some goodies from Jaguar, and the reflector was an easy win.







I put the used lambswool over mats into the car.





I also investigated the drivers seat, because the seat back was not going backwards/forwards, and the headrest did not go up/down.





The head rest had just come unpopped. I clicked it back in and that was it sorted.



Found the motor that moved the backrest forward/backward.



Traced the wiring back under the seat, to see what powered it.



It was this box of relays.



Remind me who owned Jaguar in the 1990's?





One of these relays was not operating.



Rather than sod around de-soldering it and replacing it, I ordered a used module on Ebay for £25.

 

A big clean

On the 12th May I did a big clean on the Daimler, as we were due to take it to Cumbria (West of England for) and put it in a car show.













I fitted the control module under the drivers seat, and was pleased to discover that fixed the issue perfectly!

I was peed off to realise the bodyshop had damaged the read passenger light trim when they did the body work. But I remembered seeing this light caked in body filler, so I was partially expecting this.



This rough surface is on the newly painted rear bumper. Shoddy work at its worst.



Dull spot where body had been wet-sanded and not compounded. There were lots of these that I had to sort out.



I managed to straighten the bumper brackets out, so that the rear bumper was sitting straighter.



I fitted the new parking sensor bracket (but it needs painting). At least I have working rear parking sensors again.



Highly polished the chrome.



Cleaned up the tailpipes, these were actually this bad when it went into the bodyshop.











This was me finished for the day, and I had a new "to do" list update.

- Thoroughly clean the car, inside and out - This is 90% there.....
- Assess any remedial work to the paintwork (including pinstripes/overspray); then add plan to address using wet-sanding/compounding etc. - Getting there, 75% I'd say...
- Re-colour the armrest, and front seats where necessary.
- Fir new tyres to rear wheels, and new tyre for spare wheel.
- Re-spray of front bumper.
- Re-spray of rear bumper.
- Assess if front sill covers can be re-fitted; fit if possible (If not, new sill covers BEC21887 at around £44 a pair).
- Re-fit the jacking point covers.
- Paint all parking sensor brackets, and refit new parking sensors (possibly with rear bumper re-spray?).
- Adjust position of wonky parking sensors. - Have done one, the other I did not like to disturb...
- Check height of exhausts, or is bumper wonky between exhausts? Investigate.
- Have rust attended to (by new bodyshop) on corners of passenger side doors.
- Have rust attended to (by new bodyshop) on front side, of drivers side front arch (where it meets bumper).
- Wire in some USB charging points and fit under armrest.
- New front Grille (there is minor marking around the "D" badge).
- New radiator "D" badge (mine has been badly painted gold!).
- New rear drivers side light, mine has crack in plastic lens.
- New rear passenger side light, as bodyshop have damaged the chrome surround.
- New "Daimler" or "V8" badges for side window chrome pillars (mine have once again been badly painted gold).
- Install "Audio aux input" (maybe this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/aux-jagr.html, or this: http://factoryradioservice.com/jagua...nput-p-37.html)
- Investigate Bluetooth phone install (This might help: http://jimroal.com/cars/X308Bluetooth.pdf)
- Re lacquer all wood trim (as it is faded and cracked in places)
- New gear know (mine is faded)
- Thoroughly clean engine bay.
- Have gearbox oil changed.
- Purchase and fit missing under-bonnet tool kit.
- Re-fit brake cooling duct.
- Check arch liners front and rear; are the present, do I need new ones? (these are important for fitting the brake cooling duct).
- NEW Full suspension bush kit, as there are a few knocks down there!
- NEW New chrome lower window finisher all doors (GNA1710AE+GNA1711AE+GXF2521AD+GXF2520AD).
- NEW Repair drivers mirror which does not powerfold. It also needs new glass (it has a cheap stick on version).

Completed items:
- Replace missing rear passenger side reflector (LNC5022AB) DONE!!
- Repair drivers seat back rest adjustment (new seat module). DONE!
- Adjust rear side profile to line up properly with wing. DONE!
- Purchase LNF7361AA rear parking sensor bracket, then re-fit parking sensor (Ordered from Jaguarclassicparts). DONE!
- Re-fit the chrome trim at drivers side front sill. DONE!
- Source set of original lambswool mats. DONE!

 

Cumbria car show

In May 2019 we (the whole family) took the Daimler to Cumbria for a car show that I had been invited to by a forum friend. Quite a few forum members would be there, so it would be a nice chance to catchup with a few people, and meet some others.



We stopped off when the scenery started getting more interesting, than our flat Norfolk horizon we are used to.



We stopped at a well known hotel chain (well in the UK they are...). Aston made himself comfortable.







We stayed the day before the show, so that we could explore on our own. We visited Wray castle, which was great fun.









We stopped for lunch...



But Aston obviously ate too much, as it projectiled it to the Daimler wood veneers! I was not happy....













Then we attended the car show the next day. I did not get to talk to that many people, as Aston kept me busy most of the day, but it was great fun, and the Daimler was well received.







One of my favourite cars, the Delorean; mainly because of the story behind it. While I accept he was a bit of a rogue, and did some things he should have been ashamed of, I think it was despicable the way John Delorean was setup by an FBI informant. I think it is possible he would have accepted funding by part selling to an investor had that not happened, and then the company might still be running today.

 

The Range Rover

In May 2019 I also gave my wife's Range Rover a good clean.









Then in August, the Range Rover committed suicide. The joke is my wife was driving it to the garage, where it was due to have it's air suspension pump replaced. On the way it broke down.

We got it trailered the rest of the way to the garage, but they gave us the bad news that the oil pump had broken away from its mountings, and crashed through the CAM belt. This totalled the engine. Apparently this is a common fault, and had it made it's way to the garage they would likely have recommended it was replaced... plain bad luck!



We had the Range Rover repaired, to my surprise it ran OK. But we had not confidence in the car, so we let "we buy any car" have it for a bargain price.

 

A little Frenchness

We were absolutely clueless about what to replace the Range Rover with, and test drove a few different cars, among them the Jaguar X351, and the current model Jaguar XF. But in the end we bought this Peugeot as a stop gap.

My wife ended up really liking it, and we kept it.



My little champion

I make no secret of how much my little Aston means to me, and he tends to feature in a lot of the photographs, partly as he likes to help me when I am working on the cars.

Early indications were that he might end up a Mercedes driver.



We had a great 2019 with Aston, and we even treated ourselves to a holiday in sunny Malta. Our luck was running high that year, because when we got to the hotel, we were upgraded to a posh suite for free. That's the sort of thing I hear other people talk about, but I never thought we would be so lucky. I have to include a few photos here of some really happy memories for my wife and I, taking Aston's first holiday abroad.











A last hurrah for the Daimler

I gave the Daimler it's last wash of the year in September 2019.













The Daimler did not get used for the rest of the year.

 

Our luck finally ran out

In October Aston got ill to the point he was struggling to breath, and we took him to A&E. He spent a week in hospital, and after some anti-biotics he made a recovery.

But the same thing happened again later that month, then again in November. Every 2 or 3 weeks he was back in hospital and took a week to get better. The doctors told us not to worry.



Then on the 21st December 2019 I took a phone call that will stay with me for the rest of my life. My wife Lindsey was in floods of tears, as the doctors suspected Aston had Leukaemia.

My wife and I stayed at Leicester hospital over Christmas, and the medical professionals there were absolutely fantastic. Aston faced 3 and a half years of Chemotherapy, but it was highly likely it would be successful.



Aston became very ill, and we ended up in Addenbrookes hospital for all of January, February, and half of March 2020.

This made me think seriously about all my cars. The doctors gave us the impression we'd have little spare time for a couple of years, so I thought the time might be here to sell the Mercedes and the Daimler, a harsh January and February saw me doing up to 800 miles per week, between home/work and the hospital. Our outgoings soured above our incoming wages... so I got very serious about cutting costs.

The Mercedes went up for sale at a bargain price, and was gone within a couple of weeks.



The BMW also went up for sale cheap, and sold very quickly to a lovely Turkish gentleman.



I replaced the Mercedes with a comparatively basic Audi A6 Avant. The Audi was an impulse/rush buy with a whopping 138K miles on the clock... but I did deliberately choose an estate car as I thought it would be practical.



I was also going to sell the Daimler, but it needed an MOT, which had ran out the tail end of 2019. So I booked it in.

Sadly... it failed... this is what the MOT tester found:

The front spring pans were badly corroded:





There was rust on these sticky out parts underneath:





These rear subframe brackets were badly corroded:





I managed to find somewhere online to purchase refurbished brackets (these are no longer available new), and I had a conversation with J-Cat (Jaguar specialist) in Norwich. They said go ahead and order the brackets (one less thing for them to source/find) and agreed to do the work/welding.

The Daimler went on it's way on the 24th March 2020, with the brackets boxed up in the boot.

This is it loading up on our road outside our house:







This is it safely arrived at the Jaguar specialist garage - the driver was kind enough to send me a photo!



It took a month for it to be finished, and they found more welding/repairs along the way (the drivers side jacking point needed repair too).



The bill for everything to get it MOT'd was just shy of £1,500 and really she still needed a service (despite only covering a few hundred miles since the last service...). Here it is loaded up (picture sent to me by pickup driver):



...and here she is back home safe and sound!



At that point I had spent over £8,000 on the Daimler, and sadly it was only worth £4,000, but I felt I needed to sell it to save some money. I found a buyer on the Mercedes forum of all places.

 

Vorsprung durch technik

The Audi A6 Avant was a little basic next to the cars I was used to; no electric seats, basic stereo, etc. etc. It was certainly not my first choice.

But later in March I got sent to work from home due to the COVID pandemic, so I did not really even need a car. This came at the best time possible for me, as I saved a fortune in fuel. I usually do around 25,000 miles per year commuting. With Aston out of hospital I actually started to save money again. I decided to do a little work to the Audi and make it nicer for when I needed it.

The pandemic was also fantastic for Aston, as it minimised the number of people he came into contact with, and he barely got ill all summer. When the clock struck 5pm I was straight off my computer and down into the garden to be with the family. We had some fantastic fun in the garden, especially at weekends.

It was also a little tired, the bodywork had signs of bad paintwork and repairs, and the wheels were terrible. One of them had a slow puncture that I had to keep topping up. The tyre shop told me the slow puncture was due to the excessive corrosion on the wheels, so I had them refurbished.



Aston helped me seal with with Poorboys wax.







While the wheels were off, I also decided to paint the brake calipers, as they were very rusty.





Then I purchased a Bluetooth adapter from Aliexpress for £5, and installed it so I could listen to music from my phone.





Lastly I wet-sanded and compounded the rear lights, as the inner ones were looking awful. This seems common on these Audi's.







Then Aston helped me give it a clean. It was looking very presentable.